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believed to be public rights. What was quite as important, they were usually in sympathy with public prejudice. Louis XVI had not long been on the throne when the new courts were abolished and the old ones restored. The Parliament of Paris resumed its ancient duties, and, like the monarchy it served, it learned nothing and forgot nothing during a few years of political nonexistence. In the years that preceded the Revolution there was an opportunity for the Parliament to render great service to the State; it was tried and found wanting, and its long existence came to an inglorious end. When Louis XVI was ready to grant substantial reforms the court was as strenuous in opposition as in the times of Richelieu and Mazarin. The financial measures of Turgot, the abolition of forced labor on the highways, even the practice of vaccination met with opposition from judges who were wedded to privilege and bound fast in prejudice. The courts had drifted beyond their bearings, even in the mild turmoil of the Fronde, and a political movement was beginning, compared with which the Fronde was as the purling of a brook to the turmoil of a whirlpool. The courts were still tenacious for the personal privileges and petty distinctions that were swept away in a single session of the National Assembly, and were no more fitted to act as a legislative body in times of commotion in 1789 than in 1589.

There is always a sufficient reason for political failure. There was indeed a certain grotesqueness in assuming a political rôle by bodies constituted as were the French courts. Even the English courts would have been better adapted for such work, because they were made up of men who had taken part in the active work of the community, who always had experience at the bar, and often had experience in Parliament.

Yet the English do not regard lawyers as specially valuable members of their legislative bodies. Certainly in the long line of famous English statesmen the number of lawyers is small. In this country, perhaps because we have no class whose members can give a lifetime to political work like the Pitts and Peels and Gladstones, lawyers have framed the larger part of our legislation. But the French judges, for the most part, had never been anything but judges; they were born and bred to these positions. The edicts which excited their opposition were generally financial edicts. When the Parliament dared

to speak its mind at all it expressed opposition to nearly every law for new taxation, and perhaps to this fact it owed its popularity in the community. But a state can not be run without money. Political wisdom does not consist in chronic opposition, and the kings were obliged to override the opposition of the Parliament because it was frequently so unreasonable. The French financial system was bad, the extravagance of the French Government was often great, but, after all, money had to be raised, and the Parliament had neither the right nor the capacity to offer any alternative to the legislation to which it objected. It sought to impose an inelastic veto which the kings were obliged to override by the exercise of their authority.

The judges had the prejudice, the love of routine, the fear of innovation, which are often bred by legal study, without the familiarity with business and practical life which come from legal practice. The new school of political thought filled them with dismay. Long is the list of books which influenced thought in the latter half of the century, for which the Parliament could find no use except to forbid their sale and direct the hangman to burn all he found. The index expurgatorius of the Parliament, of Paris for many years could challenge comparison with the index at Rome.

The National Assembly made short work of these repositories of learning and ancient prejudice. Their aboliton was urged, and someone objected that the courts were in vacation. "Let them remain so," said Mirabeau, "they will pass unperceived from sleep to death." Such was their fate; they were smothered in their sleep and so passed out of existence.

VII --THE ART OF WEAVING: A HANDMAID OF CIVILIZATION.

By WILLIAM B. WEEDEN.

THE ART OF WEAVING: A HANDMAID OF CIVILIZATION.

By Wм. B. WEEDEN.

It is not proposed to give a history of weaving, limited by time and place. History is in itself a scroll of evolution. If we can trace one of the arts, not in the sequence of time, but by steps of development, we shall have a record of that mystic movement of mankind in accord with circumstance, which in a large way is called civilization. This view of the subject carries us far beyond written or monumental records into the dawning light of prehistoric time. Yet these technical divisions can not stand in the interpretation of substantial evolution. Even now, or within a generation, processes of weaving practiced in old Egypt, or which clothed the preColumbian man, are or were commonly used in Africa and in the far-off isles of the Pacific. The Aryan races wove comfortable garments of wool and flax when they were forging metals into spears and swords. "The textile art dates back to the very inception of culture, and its practice is next to universal among living peoples." «

Weaving does not depend on threads or spun filament. It began by interlacing rushes, stems, split canes and vines, elm bark, palm, and other fibers. It is customary among archæologists to classify prehistoric weaving into (1) wattle work; (2) basketry; (3) matting; (4) pliable fabrics or cloths." Wattling was very primitive, serving in the early fish weirs and in other stiff and heavy textures. Plain "twined-weaving" c is considered to be a refined sort of wattling. Nothing textile was more important to the American aborigines, and by inference to all prehistoric barbarians, than basketry. Any

a Holmes, 13th An. Smithsonian Rep. Bureau Ethnology, p. 10.

b Ibid., p. 13, and Mason, Am. Anthropologist, Jan., 1901, p. 109.

e Willoughby, Am. Anthropologist, 1901, p. 201.

H. Doc. 461, pt 1-13

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